Focus Question: What ways do different partners like to communicate? Description Communication is one of the cornerstones of exceptional remote work. What can you do to boost your communication skills in service to your clients? Communication can take many forms as a remote worker – from text, to instant messaging, to voice mails left in Voxxer, to messages in Slack. Part of the challenge of remote work is learning the right communication channel for the right type of message. Sending an important message to our boss for discussion is likely to be better done by phone or email than IM. Sharing a quick tip with a co-worker who needs a response NOW is probably better done in a quick IM than a full-blown email. Basic components for communication:
Activity Consider your most important communication messages this week. Ask yourself:
For more on this topic check out: Communication in general is the main focus of my 2017 book, Effective Virtual Conversations. Be sure to read the relevant chapters – for example, chapters 9 – 11 if you are a virtual or remote team, or Best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton
Co-host of the Remote Pathways Podcast Potentials Realized – Coaching, Training and Consulting Services for remote teams, leaders and professionals Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode, where we explore the people, places and processes of exceptional remote work. You can listen to the latest episode here, or on your favorite podcast player.
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Focus Question: What type of peer support could you benefit from? What are you curious about learning about from your peers? (Knowledge, resources, tricky issues, hacks etc.?) Description Peer support is an often-underutilized component of any learning process inside, and outside, of organizations. Peer support can take many forms: Learning partners – Partnerships can be formed with members of the same team or different teams to provide a wider view of the work, role industry and/or organization, Learning partners may be assigned specific questions that they explore together so they can learn more about each other’s roles, processes, skills etc. Learning partners can also be used as part of larger training, with partners meeting in between modules to support each other’s implementation of skills. Job Shadowing – This involves spending time with others and following them through day-to-day operations. Job shadowing provides a “birds-eye view” of how tasks are done. Action Learning Groups – Groups of peers may come together and work real-time on current challenges and opportunities in an organization. Peer Coaching – Connected with other learning initiatives, small groups of peers may come together for discussion, sharing and learning about what’s working, what’s possible and what’s challenging with their work and/or their role. What else might be possible? Activity Consider the different opportunities you have in place for more peer learning and support. What are the things you are curious about?
PlanDoTrack – Quarterly Planning Section and related questions. Effective Virtual Conversations – chapters on peer learning. Wishing you the best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton
Co-host of the Remote Pathways Podcast Potentials Realized – Coaching, Training and Consulting Services for remote teams, leaders and professionals Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode, where we explore the people, places and processes of exceptional remote work. You can listen to the latest episode here, or on your favorite podcast player. Focus Question: Who can you learn from? What new insights do you want to gain more information around? Description Mentoring is an extremely important relationship for professionals at all stages of their career. Mentors can help you see below the waterline of how things operate, understand what is needed, identify conversations you need to have, and also help you avoid pitfalls based on their own experience. Mentoring is usually a different relationship than coaching and supervision. Mentors provide insights and advice based on their own work experience. Mentoring has been found to have multiple benefits for both mentor and protégé including more confidence, clarity about what’s required, and some studies have even found reduced turnover and higher compensation. What do you see as benefits to mentoring? Activity Consider the areas you could benefit from having a mentor support you around. Making Mentoring Work There are several items which makes mentoring work including creating a roadmap of where you are going to go, having a plan, and being clear around your roles. Mentoring typically has a fixed start and end. It can be beneficial to have clear GOALS around what the mentoring conversations are going to cover. Consider creating consistent meetings and a timeline or roadmap of where you are going. Finally, it should be clear who is setting the meeting agenda, and what you want to accomplish in each conversation. Be sure that you are clear on the roles the mentor and mentee or protégé will play. Mentors can provide an important “inside track” of how things really get done in an organization or industry. They may also be someone you can take tricky issues to or seek alternative perspectives around. While mentoring used to be seen as something only seasoned professionals offered, today the concept of “Reverse Mentoring” has taken root. Younger proteges are often teaching seasoned mentors’ key elements around new ways of working, technology and other topics. This serves to ensure that there really is a beneficial two-way relationship. For more on this: Check out sections 2 and 4 questions around Collaboration in both PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder. These sections will provide you with possible questions you will want to ask in establishing your mentoring relationship. There are also multiple blog posts on the topic of mentoring over at the Teams365 blog at PotentialsRealized.com. All the best, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Strengths. You can listen to Episode 8 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
Focus Question: What are the skills you want to grow into? Description There are many skills which can help you stand out as a remote professional – here are the ones I shared in Effective Virtual Conversations for remote leaders. In fact, for most remote professionals we can benefit from skills in these areas. What do you need to focus on in as it relates to skills in each area? What can help you grow? What areas have you had not exposure to? As a remote worker it may be even more important to revisit these skills on a regular basis. Ask for feedback from others. Looking back to last week’s post on the ecosystem of learning where we explored the different ways you can learn in the remote space, what can you do to expand your skills in these different areas? Activity Take look at your skills in each of these areas. Rate yourself on a 1-10 with 1 being low and 10 being high. Note what your focus is going forward, including how you want to grow or develop your skills in each area. Note your ratings and consider what you want to do to grow in these areas you have highlighted. My top 3 areas of focus are: 1. 2. 3. Take a few minutes to download this week's 52 Week for Remote Work one-pager on Remote Working Skills. All the best, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Mentoring, Working from anywhere and systems. You can listen to Episode 6 here, or on your favorite podcast player. Also be sure to take a look at the episode download.
Focus Question: What learning do you want to undertake? Description Learning can take many forms. As a remote professional, it can be very important to build in time for ongoing learning. As I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations, consider the following approaches to learning. It might include: What are the things you are wanting to learn? What are the best modalities to learn these? Where else might you explore these learnings? Activity Identify the learning needs you have to do your best work. What type of learning is going to help you? Where can you access this learning? What do you need to schedule in? What else do you need to note? Need to Know In addition to the different types of learning, there are many different areas and bands you can be exploring around learning. Just like this week’s quote, we will want to explore the various layers: actions, habits, values and destiny. So what? – What’s important about this topic? There are many different ways we can learn tasks. What’s going to support you with learning as you need it, when you need it and how you need it? For more on this: Check out the PlanDoTrack call on the Forgetting Curve – Spring 2019. Check out chapter 3 of Effective Virtual Conversations, Jennifer Britton, especially page 11. Best wishes, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
Focus Question: What are the things that you do really well? Description Strengths based leadership asserts that each individual has innate talents and things they can do exceptionally well. Our top strengths are a unique fingerprint and in combination create “unique superpowers”. As a remote worker we may find ourselves leaning into work that is more aligned with our strengths. A challenge can be finding others to collaborate with who we can work with to round out of weaknesses. Research continues to show that it’s easier to grow our strengths than our weaknesses. As a remote worker the reality may be that we have tasks we HAVE TO DO and can’t delegate or defer. What can we do overtime to possibly rebalance our work focus? Activity Complete a strengths assessment so you can learn more about what you are innately talented in. You might consider completing online assessments including VIA Strengths from Positive Psychology OR StrengthsFinder 2.0. Use your browser to see if these would be of interest. Need to Know Consider your strengths in light of what you do every day. How are your strengths helping you? Hindering you? As you consider the work you do with others, what do you know of notice about their strengths and preferences? What might you need to magnify or minimize in order to relate with them better? So what? – What’s important about this topic? Understanding our strengths and how we might overleverage them is an important part of remote worker’s self-awareness. When things are busy, uncertain or stressful, it’s likely that we may lean into our strengths. Sometimes strengths become over leveraged and create a blindspot. Consider where you might be overleveraging or over utilizing your strengths. For more on this: Check out section 1 and section 4 of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder. Section 4 asks you to consider the strengths that you bring, also in combination with your values and opportunities. This is a rich body of work you will want to explore as a leader of a team. Be sure to check out some of these books: Go, Put Your Strengths to Work – Marcus Buckingham Strengths-Based Leadership StrengthsFinder2.0 All the best, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
Focus Question: What gets you motivated as a remote worker? Description Motivation usually has several components – internal and external factors. Internal factors include our own preferences. We do something because we love to do it or want to learn. External factors are when we do something because of an external impact – we are going to get rewarded, or praised, or even punished. What drives you? Where do you get your motivation in work? Regardless of the source, knowing what motivates us, and what doesn’t, is critical for remote workers. While we work autonomously, if we are not self-motivated, it can have an impact. What are the elements which are going to keep you moving forward, and excited, with your work? What’s going to get you out of bed in the morning? What’s going to replace the water cooler talk? Self-motivation can be critical for remote workers given that we are working in isolation. Activity Take some time this week to think about the things that have helped you move projects across the finish line. From this list below, what were the factors which helped you? Questions to consider:
For more on this: Check out the Iceberg exercise in section 1 of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder. Be clear on what your motivators are. Inquire about others on your team. Some additional resources around motivation include writing from authors including: Maslow, Daniel Pink - Drive Best wishes, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
Description Our values act as anchors and help us with decision making and prioritization. When we act in alignment with our values, professionals may find a higher degree of satisfaction. For example, if I hold a value of freedom, I may thrive in a work place where I have the freedom to determine HOW I do the work, WHEN I do the work, and in what fashion I do the work. While I still may be responsible for end results, being in control of what I do and don’t do may be invaluable. Activity Take a look at the list of 200 values included on the Coaching Business Builder website. As you review them consider these questions: What are the values you hold true? As you review your top 5 values, which ones are non-negotiable? What can you do to adjust your work and flow in order to live more by your values? Need to Know Values serve as an anchor for us. They will help us with prioritization, delegation and overall career planning. So what? – What’s important about this topic? Values are not just an individual framework. Teams have values too. On a remote team it can be very important to identify the values which shape the team (not the individuals). These values will inform the BEHAVIORS people undertake. In turn the BEHAVIORS influence the RESULTS we get. Discussion around values as a team, is not just a “nice to have” but an essential discussion. For more on this: Check out section 1 and section 4 of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder. Section 1 gets to you to explore what behaviors flow out of your values. Again, if you have a value of freedom, what behaviors does it lead to? How can that help and/or hinder your work and relationships with others in the remote space? What’s important this year? What are going to be your anchors? All the best, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
Description This week’s blog post brings us to getting organized. What are the things you want to put in place in order to get moving in the way you want? As a remote worker there may be need for getting organized and using systems in several areas. Consider:
What do you know about your own preferences for how you like to work and see things? Need to Know
To explore this topic further check out: Section 3 of PlanDoTrack and the early part of this section around systems. If you are a coach, check out this recent Coaching Business Builder blog posts on systems. Check out this post from FlexJobs on how to organize your day when working from home - https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/how-to-structure-your-day-when-working-from-home/. If you are a professional who works remotely, check out these blog posts related to Systems. Whether you are a leader, remotepreneur, or team member, you'll find them applicable. Enjoy! Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episodes which covers the topic of Vision and Creating SMART-E Goals. You can listen to Episode 4 here (vision), as well as Episode 5 - SMART-E Goals or on your favorite podcast player.
Description As a remote worker we are left to our devices a significant amount of the time. While we have goals related to our work, it’s likely that we will also be setting goals related to our own focus as well. Activity This week’s activity gets you to create a list of your goals for the decade. Over the last few years the notion of a Bullet Journal has taken root in popular culture. Bullet Journals are characterized by lots of open space and lists of what’s important. Start a part of your journal or notebook around what your goals are for this decade. While a goal list may seem daunting, think of yourself 10 years from now. What do you want your work to look like? How do you want to spend your time? What do you want to have accomplished? What milestones will you have reached? What life experiences do you want to have completed? Make a bullet list – or bucket list – for all the things you hope to achieve. What are your goals for the decade? Dream big, don’t limit yourself! Need to Know Returning back to the vision work you undertook last week, what are the Annual, Quarterly and Monthly goals which are important to identify and focus on? Setting goals is one part of the equation. What is going to create some momentum? What is a quick win? As I write in Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack “Consistent Action + Daily Steps = Momentum”. What are the things you can do on a daily basis to chunk down your bigger goals? Want to take a deeper dive around this topic? Check out Episode 3 of the Remote Pathways Podcast . You can find it on your favorite podcast player or at https://www.remotepathways.com/podcast. Check out the Vision questions found on page 95 of Coaching Business Builder or page 99 of PlanDoTrack. Use the Annual Plan templates found in Section 5. All the best, Jennifer Check out the most recent Remote Pathways Podcast Episode which covers the topic of Vision. You can listen to Episode 4 here, or on your favorite podcast player.
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AuthorThe Remote Pathways blog follows many of the themes we explore in the Remote Pathways Podcast. This year (2020) we're proud to bring you a 52 week-series for you to follow along throughout the year. Posts are penned by co-host Jennifer Britton, an avid award-winning blogger for many years. Jennifer is the author of five books. Visit her author page on Amazon. Archives
December 2020
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